StartPizzicato. In the Options menu,
select the Graphic options item. In the
dialog box, select the Voice colour item in
the Useof colours popup menu to
get the following:

This option asks Pizzicato to draw notes
with the colour of the voice to which they belong. ClickOK.

When you add notes with the automatic
justification, Pizzicato automatically assigns the voices to
notes and rests.

Add a C quarter note on the staff.
Pizzicato automatically assigns voice 1 to it, whose
colour is red. The note is thus redrawn in red when
you release the mouse. Add 3 quarter notes to have:

Each note has the red colour to form the
first rhythmic voice.

Now add an E half note under the first
C. The note appears in blue because it belongs to a
second voice and is perfectly aligned with the first
quarter note:

By adding a second half note just to
the right, it appears in blue and is aligned below
the third quarter note to complete the second voice.
Add a whole note to the beginning of the measure. As
the first two voices are complete, Pizzicato assigns
the third voice to it and the note is drawn in green:

The use of colours lets you understand the
automatic distribution of voices in the measure. It is only
useful when you create complex measures with many different
voices which imbricate the ones into the others. To encode
notes and rests by rhythmic voices, see the
lesson on the notes and rests introduction.

When you click a note with right mouse button (ALT+Click on
the Macintosh), the Edit note play... menu item can be
selected. A dialog appears and let you select, among other
things, the Custom color of the note. Clicking this
color area opens a color palette with which you can modify the
color. The same dialog can also be called by SHIFT clicking a
note in the score.

In the Options menu, Graphism... item, there
are four choices for the Use of colors:

The default choice is Black color, which draws
all notes and rests in black on the score.

The second choice is Voice color. In this case,
notes are drawn in the colour of the rhythmic voice to
which they belong.

The next choice, Track color, draws notes and
rests in the colour associated with the staff. This
colour may be selected in the instruments view.

The last choice is Color by scale/chord. This
option is quite interesting to compose music. When the
score has chords in it (encoded with the chord notation
tool) the notes are then displayed in three colours:

Green: the note is part of the current chord.

Orange: the note is part of a scale deduced from the
chord

Red: the note is not part of the chord neither of the
scale

Only the first choice (Black color) displays the
possible custom colors defined for notes.

Some Pizzicato versions have an automatic
color assignment function, based on the note name, the note
frequency or the guitar fingering.

Create a new score and add a few notes or open an
existing score. Select all measures and go in the Edit
menu to choose the Assign colors to notes...
item. The following dialog appears:

You can assign colors to notes in four different ways:

From the note name - The leftmost color
column lets you select the colors for each note name.
Just click the color area and the color palette
appears. Here, all C notes will be colored in light
yellow.

From the note pitch - The two central
columns are used to assign the colors to the 12 note
pitches of an octave. Here the principle is that each
note frequency (within one octave) have a specific
color.

From the fingering - In a guitar tablature,
it is possible to assign the fingering to the notes.
The last column is used to assign a corresponding
color to each fingering.

Black color - Is used to reset all colors to
black.

Here is a possible result (based on the note names):

If the Save choosen colors checkbox is checked,
your color selection will be saved for the next call to this
dialog. You can then customize the color table for note
names, note pitches and fingering.

It lets you to make a note or a rest invisible. The note or
rest keeps its graphic position and is played but is not
displayed in the score. This feature is mainly used to be able to
hide rests when several rhythmic voices are introduced. Click on
the note or rest and it becomes invisible. By clicking it again,
it becomes visible again. Click on some notes of the measure to
see it happen. In the Graphic options dialog box (Options
menu), you will find a check box allowing to see invisible
symbols, in case you add an invisible note or rest which you
cannot find any more